Annakarinaland

2011-02-04

Maria Schneider - Belle et RebelleWhat had become of her? We left her, a child in the arms of handsome Marlon. In a role too overwhelming for her and she would not return unscathed. Descent into hell. Solitude. Chaotic career. With the sole bastion of acute lucidity of the mediocrities in the world. We find her today more beautiful than ever. Funny. Insolent. A little bruised. Waiting for a role of good measure, and we would be proud. We love her very much. Portrait.

A Precocious Rebel"I wanted to paint, and I studied Latin and Greek. I was a good student, I wanted to make excavations and illustration for children's books, because it is an artistic craft. My mother was a librarian. I was living with her. Then there was May 68 and while my brother became bourgeois, a physician, and demonstrated with red flags, I cried because I could not study. I had quite a violent conflict with my mother, so I left home at fifteen and a half. I earned my living by selling drawings and illustrations for restaurant menus. I have also been a young model for jeans.

I was a cinephile. I went to see many films, like those of Italian neorealism. In 1969, while making the rounds I met Brigitte Bardot at a film by Jean Aurel, Les Femmes. She took a liking to me. I told her that I lived alone. As if Brigitte was not nice to animals and stray dogs! She knew my father, Daniel Gélin, who was an actor and who I did not know. She offered me a converted maid's room in her home in Paris, and I stayed two years. That's how I started in the trade. I met her agent who told me with his Yugoslavian accent: "You should make movies with the physique you have." I was fascinated by the personality of Brigitte Bardot, who was thirty-three years and was a dazzling beauty. She was already very clear about her work and began to want to quit. She taught me things that I subsequently was able to verify. I met Warren Beatty, Alain Delon, who made me do Madly (1970). After I did some little things like La Vieille Fille (1971), by Jean Pierre Blanc, with Annie Girardot and Philippe Noiret.

Last Tango ... first major role In fact, it's a total coincidence. I was friends with Dominique Sanda. She would make the film with Jean-Louis Trintignant, but she was pregnant. She had a large picture with her of both of us. Bertolucci saw it. He made me do a casting. I read the script, I did not immediately understand. I did not really want to do it and everyone told me: "C'mon, with Brando! ..." I resisted until the last moment, because I had to make a film by Valerio Zurlini, with Delon, called The Professor, with the dancer Sonia Petrovna. I regretted my choice since the beginning of my career would have been sweeter, quieter. For Tango, I was not prepared. People have identified with a character that was not me. Butter, about saucy old pigs ... I think it's a film that has aged, style, form and speech. It's a film typical of the '70s, dated, unlike the films of Antonioni, Rossellini, that do not wrinkle. Bertolucci's very smart, he followed the fashions. Even Marlon with his charisma and class, felt a bit violated, exploited a little in this film. He rejected it for years. And me, I felt it doubly. Marlon was extraordinary, sympathetic with the technicians and generous. Bertolucci, who was a Communist, had the people with him and was working fifteen hours a day. Marlon said: "There they are - sandwiches for everyone," the Hollywood superstar that he was. There was a chemistry between us, a complicity. With other actors, the film would have been very different. The 70s and the Sexual revolution Last Tango is the And God Created Woman (Vadim, 1956) of the 70s. But I'll tell you a secret, it's a scoop that I found in Italy but not in France. In the original script of Tango, my role would be played by a boy, which obviously changes everything. They did not dare. Marlon always told me: "But you have more character than a boy! "[Laughs] It's still the first draft that would have broken taboos. The film, as it was filmed, was banned in Italy by a group of Catholics in Spain under the Franco regime. As in Lolita (Kubrick, 1962) the age difference is also a real taboo. Marlon me twenty and fifty years. In retrospect, this film is harder in the dialogue of the picture - since we have seen much worse - in the perversity of the text and the screenplay by Franco Arcalli, which rotates around zoophilia, pigs and all that ... There is also a deadly side, and I must say that the murder in the end of the film did me much good.The True Nature of an Actress I learned on the field, because I have not taken lessons. I was just at the Actors Studio, but I did not like it. I do not like drama. I go to the opera, but the theater is boring. There are very few actors who say that. For me, cinema is closer to painting, and I like working with filmmakers who have a sense of the image. I like the idea that cinema remains a memory of our time, and when filmed, that there is a trace of it. Then I met Antonioni, who is closer to what I am in life. He chose not to sell his soul, and many actors also abstain . After the Bertolucci film, I had golden bridges to sub-Tango, roles of sex symbols ... I ended it very quickly. I also had problems because they said: "She does not want to undress, she will not do the love scenes ..." That's what we always ask young women, even in 2001, it has not changed one iota, however. I'm still shocked about the fact that men of sixty years, Serrault, Poiret, Noiret, have a continuous career, compared to women the same age. Even Girardot. Between the sex symbol and grandma, there are no other interesting roles. I'm a part of an association for those involved in difficulty called “La Roue Tourne “ which has existed since 1956. I'm just their ambassador. The president is eighty years old and she helps those she calls "disasters of glory." The actors have no unemployment insurance and when they have an accident they are not covered by social security. It's incredible when you consider that this association has paid the rent for Marcel Carné in the last ten years of his life ... but also that of Abel Gance. The state did nothing. Me, I also see a time when I will have difficulty working. The president said: "But, my dear Maria, it has always existed, now you're old, you are forty ! She has known actresses of the silent era, like Jacqueline Delubac. All this has not changed, even with women directors. There is a terrible crisis of roles, and film seems locked up. Everyone has their place, and "family film" is an illusion. Garbo's character interested me enormously. I did an interview with Frederic Mitterrand, referring to the interactive exhibit Ciné Cité, which was held at La Defense. To Frederick, with his kindness, his curiosity, I asked about the great actresses of the past, and I mentioned Greta Garbo's ambiguity [laughs], Anna Magnani for her strength and Vivian Leigh for her fragility. These three actresses I worship.

"I was rock’n roll"About drugs, we did not know at the time, it was so dangerous. There was an ideal, to change society, and especially a thirst for novelty. Young people today do not take drugs at all in the same way. They are all paranoid, violent. But we have AIDS and unemployment. Drugs have become a matter of money. I have lost seven years of my life and I regret it bitterly. First, an image that sticks with you in relation to people who want to work with you. Fortunately, I have not deviated to alcohol or pills. I am one of the few who has been (an addict) and so far who is still alive. Nico, unfortunately, has not, she was suicidal. It all depends on the love we have of life, or not. Basically, I liked life and I'm out, but not alone. I started using drugs when I became famous. I did not like the celebrity, and especially the image full of innuendo, naughty, that people had of me after Last Tango. In addition, I had no family behind me, who protect you. I had no bodyguard like Sharon Stone, and so I was very exposed. I suffered abuse. People who come up to tell you unpleasant things on planes. I was tracked down, and I felt hounded. And then, we must put things into perspective. I adopted what Mastroianni said: "I am a craftsman." This is really what is best for me. I did not paint, but I paint with myself. Giving emotions to people is a pleasure. The money, fame, power, all that, it is better for protection. It takes years to understand, and it's called maturity. Exploring the margins When I had trouble, I was working in the more marginal routes, with Garrel, Rivette ... I made the film Le Voyage au jardin des morts (1976), a rare film that only the fans of Garrel saw. There was no money. Garrel did everything: sound, image ... He would film in the studios at night. Rassam gave us a thousand francs for it, a thousand francs to make the film. Nobody was paid. This film was really made for love of art. The image is beautiful, it was blown up 16 mm black and white. I am not made up and there are shots of extraordinary beauty. Then there was Rivette. He came to me and said, "Maria, I turn to you. "Completely out of it, already under the influence of Tranxene (drug). He made me go to Paris, his favorite cafe on the Champs-Elysees. I arrived I see a guy sitting in a suit who told me: "You know, I'm writing the script at the same time . What would you like to do? Me: "I dunno, a thriller, a thriller ..." He left "And with what actor would you do it with? "Well, I know, with my friend Joe [Dallessandro] [laughs]. It became Merry-Go-Round (1977). Now we do more movies like this. It was the new wave, anything was possible. I am a little nervous, because Rivette is really someone who does nothing in a movie. Lubtchansky did every camera movement, and another guy wrote the lyrics. The actors are in the middle. Rivette is the posture of the director. He especially has the gift of bringing people together. The byways of cinema I made L'Imposteur by Luigi Comencini in 1982. He's a wonderful gentleman, a great director, and his three daughters are in the business: Francesca, Peppe and Cristina. This film is a fable about Jesus and the Vatican today. The subject reminds me of a movie that I declined to do with Zeffirelli, where I interpreted the Virgin Mary, Jesus of Nazareth (1978). At the time, I said: "It's not my thing, the Virgin Mary, but I regret it very much. In addition, he emphasized he was not angry with me because he came to pick me up four years ago for a role in Jane Eyre (1994). I love Zeffirelli who is a great classic filmmaker. For fifteen years, I went regularly between Italy and France. Citons La Dérobade, by Daniel Duval (1979), Balles perdues, by Jean-Louis Comolli (1983) which is a comic thriller, Ecrans de sable, by Randa Chahal Sabbag (1990), Au pays des Juliets, by Mehdi Charef (1991).I always go to the movies, but choose my films. My latest love Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Ang Lee (2000). It is a brilliant lyrical ballet!

Un féminisme empreint de mystère(Feminism tinged with mystery )"I prefer mystery. But at nineteen, when someone asks you about your private life, it's really painful. Questions like "Who is your lover? "Why you do not have children? At the time, I responded with a joke, I said that I had fifty lovers, men and women. It was terrible saying that. Newspapers such as Le Gay Pied responded immediately with the first degree. I think all this information interests only me. Coming out and stuff, what does it mean today? Even Jodie Foster hides. The witch hunt still exists in some quarters just as the Middle Ages. Cinema is still archaic. Among men, there is a solidarity, they look out for each other, produce among themselves, give themselves a hand, it's great.

Women are isolated, they claim less and the more they must spread their privacy. The actress who has a baby, it sells, but the one who lives very well in her corner, it is not possible. We all have ambiguous genitalia, but it is not written on the face.

One day, Delphine Seyrig came to see me in Los Angeles. She was forty years old, me I was twenty. She was more motivated than me by the feminist struggle. Me, I said: "We'll see, I'll do this perhaps more in two years. She made enemies and embarrassed journalists, but if it is sure to succeed, we must go in the direction of rubbing someone the right way, as Nathalie Baye, Isabelle Huppert".

Maria Schneider: Accomplished Arthouse Actress Dies at 58

French actress Maria Schneider died in Paris on Thursday (Feb. 3) after a long bout with cancer.

In the USA we know her from Last Tango in Paris because it was an English language film. It was a product of a niche genre from the '60s and '70s called Euro-American “arthouse” films. American actors and European actors alike starred in these films, which were usually directed by European directors, and were co-productions between France, Italy, the UK and the USA. Examples are Bernardo Bertolucci (Last Tango in Paris, 1972), René Clément (Wanted: Babysitter, 1975) and Michelangelo Antonioni (Blow-Up, 1966). These films were designed to promote European arthouse film with American entertainment packaging.

The young Maria Schneider adored arthouse films and said in an interview in Paris (2001): “I was a student and I wanted to be a painter and I studied Greek and Latin”… I wasn't planning to be an actress but was a cinephile and saw two, three, four movies a week and that was a great time for movies because you could see all the neorealism, you could see Bergman, Visconti, Antonioni.”

Schneider said she was taken under the wing of French actor Brigitte Bardot and lived with her for two years where she met producers and casting agents and began appearing in films. Her first [uncredited] role was in 1969 at the age of 17 in The Christmas Tree, directed by Terence Young and starring William Holden and Virna Lisi. Other Euro-American arthouse films she worked in include [uncredited] Les Femmes in 1969 directed by Jean Aurel starring Brigitte Bardot, The Love Mates directed by Roger Kahane starring Alain Delon and Hellé (1972) directed by Roger Vadim.

"In fact, it's a total coincidence. I was close friends with Dominique Sanda. (The Conformist, 1970) She wanted to make the film with Jean-Louis Trintignant, but she was pregnant. She had a large picture with her of the two of us. Bertolucci saw it. He made me do a casting. I read the script, I did not immediately understand. I did not really want to do it and everyone told me: "C’mon, with Brando ..." I resisted until the last moment, because I had to make the film by Valerio Zurlini, with (Alain) Delon, called The Professor (1972) with dancer Sonia Petrovna. I regretted my choice since the beginning of my career would have been sweeter, quieter. For Tango, I was not prepared. People have identified with a character that was not me. Butter, about saucy old pigs ... I think it's a film that has aged, style, form and speech. It's a film typical of the '70s, dated, unlike the films of Antonioni, Rossellini, that do not wrinkle. Bertolucci's very smart, he followed the fashions. Even Marlon with his charisma and class, felt a bit violated, exploited a little in this film. He rejected it for years. And me, I felt it doubly. Marlon was extraordinary, sympathetic with the technicians and generous. Bertolucci, who was a Communist, worked for the people and was working fifteen hours a day. Marlon said: "There they stood, and so sandwiches for everyone," the Hollywood superstar that he was. There was a chemistry between us, a complicity. With other actors, the film would have been very different."

Last Tango in Paris (review by Movie Magazine International, San Francisco) did not fare well in the USA in the beginning. The police raided the cinemas and drove the audiences into the streets such as at a cinema house in Riverside where I attended one of the first screenings. Arthouse became associated with explicit sexual content in films like Bertolucci’s tale of a young 19-year-old woman who is picked up by a man old enough to be her father, grieving for his dead wife who committed suicide. The script written by Bertolucci is sadistic and demeaning, especially for the part written for the young Maria Schneider.This was something she realized later on in life that she would never escape and her fictitious character Jeanne became unfairly superimposed on her, something that was hard to shake. It was not “five minutes of fame” in a uneven cult film like "Last Tango" that Schneider was after. She reported that neither Bertolucci nor Brando respected her as an actor in that improvisational scenes were forced on her without having time to think them over.

If that is not enough, the media had a field day with the film’s excesses where Brando and Bertolucci emerged as champions and Schneider took the fall for their clumsy and mean-spirited artistry for women. Even the part where Jeanne (Schneider) shoots Paul (Brando) is flawed, for after all his sadistic behavior hurled over her, he suddenly seems to be over his grief and wants a relationship with her. "Why did she do it? After all he was (finally) warming up to her" -- was actually a common reaction in 1972 to her revenge. Years later, it would appear that Jeanne did the right thing and Paul has gone down in history as a mean slimeball. Bertolucci as maker must share that responsibility.

The Euro-American film provided other vehicles for Maria Schneider to show her real abilities.* French arthouse director René Clement made La Babysitter in 1975, three years after "Last Tango." The film in English is called Wanted: Babysitter (also Scarred). In this film Maria got to settle the score and show a part closer to her real self. She plays Michelle, a young sculptor who supports herself babysitting. In a twist of fate, she meets the young actor Ann (Sydne Rome) who is unhappily in love with the food mogul Cyrus Franklin (Carl Möhner). Ann is hit by a car and scarred for life, unable to take her clothes off in films, which thus ends her career. She decides to take revenge on her ex-lover and kidnap his young son Boots (John Whittington).

Michelle takes Ann into her home, and ironically supports a young actor, like herself in real life, that was exploited at a young age and who is commanded to continue doing parts that are demeaning or be thrown off the picture. Posing as Michelle , Ann sedates Boots and moves him to a deserted mansion where Michelle is given a false babysitting job for him. Vic, Boots' kidnapper (Vic Morrow), guards the place as part of a gang that exploits his father and sets up Michelle for the fall.

In this film Schneider plays a part where she has a nice boyfriend for a change, although a little fixated: Gianni (Renato Pozzetto) who supports her and relentlessly tries to find where she has been abducted. In every scene Schneider exudes gifted sensitivity and compassion. There is not a note of falseness to her performance. It takes a lot of work to get the young Boots to trust Michelle, since he believes she is the mean babysitter that sedated him. Michelle warmly develops a friendship with him and they work together to get rescued even though they are up against some very bad guys including Stuart Chase (Robert Vaughn), an actor that knows Anna. In the film Michelle is beaten and her hair cut with a knife. She constantly lives under the threat of being killed. During everyone moment of her capture she does not give up protecting the boy and displays courage and charisma. This was the brilliant work of Maria Schneider.

In 2001 Schneider spoke about how parts for women were becoming slim for her, and she no longer received central billing as the young actor where she often played roles simply called "The Girl." She was given minor roles up until her last picture in 2008. This is the well-known fate of women in film, with a shelf life of a ballerina. Men continue to get major roles well into their 80s with young women as their lovers and wives.

Forget "Last Tango." Maria Schneider made over 40 films. Many of these are French language pictures, but Schneider, who spoke excellent English, made quite a few that can be seen in the USA. While the media has a field day focusing on the breakthrough role of her career (Last Tango in Paris), it is also worth noting the expanse of her career with films such as The Passenger, opposite Jack Nicholson in 1975 directed by Antonioni , and Merry Go Round (1975) based on Reignen, a notable play by Arthur Schnitzler. Later roles include The Repentant directed by Laetitia Masson (2002), where Schneider plays the sister of Charlotte (Isabelle Adjani). Maria's last role was in Cliente (2008) by the noted French director Josiane Balasko.

Maria Schneider’s work includes many handpicked roles that reflect ambitious adventures in arthouse cinema. To this champion of better roles for women, we take adieu, and will continue to appreciate her as a vital and important French actor with the films she has left us, gone too soon.

*Note: Check Le Video San Francisco for English language films of Maria Schneider (The Passenger, Scarred, Last Tango in Paris, Merry Go Round, Au Pays des Juliet are in stock).Le Video does regular tributes to filmmakers, cast and crew who have recently passed away. They have the best arthouse film colllection in San Francisco.